Slam City Jam 2003, Results and Evocations.

May 07, 2003

This is a day by day summary of events that took place at this years Slam City Jam contest in Vancouver. I wanted to put this up on the website on a daily basis but after you finish reading you will see why that was almost impossible to do. I even tried to finish this on the flight home but I fell victim to sleep. Always a day late and a dollar short, this is what I can remember, eh?

Day Four.

Sunday, May 4, 9:45 A.M. — 4:30 A.M.

The best day of the trip eh! It starts with the ladies vert and street finals, and ends with the mens street and vert finals.

After a lovely three- hour nap I arrive at the Convention Center just in time for the ladies street contest which I was excited about watching. We had watched them practice a day earlier and they were seriously killing it eh! Vanessa Torres took first place and showed that she is still the one to beat by pulling Smith grinds on the rail and 5-0′s up the ledge.

So, as I’m sure you have already heard that Ryan Sheckler won the Slam City Jam. Well, let me just tell you a little about it. Ryan pulls more tricks in the first 30 seconds of his run than most pull in their whole run. His skating has matured and he definitely stepped it up to prove himself here. He had two different runs that were flawless which included backside Smiths, proper frontside feebles, backside lipslides, flip tricks, and some damn good style! At the age of thirteen Ryan is the youngest pro to win a WCS event, not to mention the $15,000 first place prize money too! Not a bad way to kick off a pro career- eh?

Local Canadian Rick McCrank placed second in the finals. He fell at the beginning of his run which is probably why he got second. A well deserved $8,000 went to bank account though.

Carlos de Andrade finished with the three spot, along with $5,000 and the biggest ollies of the contest.

After all is said and done we go for dinner, I tell myself to take it easy tonight and get some work done. Good thing we ate a little early too, because as we were leaving everyone else was coming in. It doesn’t take much to get me going, I’m easily diverted away from responsibility, so I’m proud of myself for walking out on this one! Back to the hotel I went to start my summary of events, but the Internet connection was terrible and the computer kept crashing. Go figure, eh? I try to be responsible and get some work done and I can’t even do that right.

Day Three.

Saturday, May 3, 9 A.M. — 6 A.M.

The street semi-finals and vert qualifying are the main attractions for the day. There were 70 street skaters and only 20 would make it to the finals. It’s a rough-cut and I’d hate to be the judge. For the vert it was 27 skaters with only ten making the cut. Last years winner Bucky Lasek along with Andy Macdonald had a free ride to the finals making it a field of twelve.

As the weekend goes on, the skating gets better and better. Ryan Sheckler was proof of that, eh! He is no longer one of those little kids. His style has matured along with his skating which easily earned him first place in the semi- finals.

Like I said earlier, I’d hate to be the judge. Just missing the cut were Chris Senn, Gailea Momolu, Chad Bartie, and John Rattray. Need I say more? I think so, eh. Chris Senn had the best lines all weekend and some of us industry spectators talked about it that night over dinner and decided that Chris should just advance to finals of every contest he enters.

After the street semi- finals was the hockey game between the Jaks and a few choice skaters. I was told the Jaks are a Canadian gang of skaters that also play hockey and that their numbers are growing all throughout Canada, eh. They looked cool, eh, but could they take on Chalmers and Vallelys squad? The only rule was that you had to be on your skateboard to score. The best part of the whole game was the face-off. A Ja ref would count down 3-2-1- GO! and the two teams would just race at each head on. Dave Carnie was taken out early with a separated shoulder and that was just a foreshadowing of how the game would end. Renee Renee came in for Carnie and he allowed the game-winning goal past him. He looked visually upset. Check out the video clip — its great!

So far, I have been overwhelmed with all the beautiful girls in Vancouver, eh. I had some time to walk around and thought I’d talk and take some photos. Why take photos of skaters all day long when such beauty surrounds you, eh? Thanks girls! You made me want to be 18 again (sigh).

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The vert qualifying was up next and I just want to say that vert contests are getting pretty damn gnarly, eh. Don’t even think about falling in your run and if you do you mind as well just kiss your chances of making the finals good night. Sandro Dias has been on a tear as of late and the only kissing that he had to do was to the crowd, eh. He qualified in first with his first flawless run. He has this new trick/stunt called the “gnarr jar” — which is a 540 to body jar! Yeah whatever,eh?

Neal Hendrix qualified in ninth place and he had one of the smoothest runs of the day. I always enjoy watching him skate and to see him skating at 100 percent was even better, eh. I met up with him for a little solo filming to get some better angles so you all could see for yourself. I haven’t filmed much vert with a death lens so Neal gave me some good pointers. The speed and the distance cleared were the hardest to get used to. Timing and placement is critical as I found out— totally missing the first thing I filmed. I am a believer in the saying, “you learn something new everyday, eh”, and that I did.

I filmed Tony Hawk doing the 900. I know you’ve probably seen it before, but Iv’e never filmed it before.

Moving on to Saturday night… I think everyone was feeling a little wore out by now and that made it easier to be influenced to hit the after party and end up in a worse condition than the night before. Which of course happened to many of us, myself included.

By the end of the night I was wearing a furry hat, sunglasses, a furry coat, and letting some girl put lipstick on me????????? And again the pictures turned out better! eh?

Day Two.

Friday, May 2, — 9 A.M. — 4 A.M.

Today is qualifying day for street. Of the one hundred skaters scheduled to skate, only 40 will make it to the semi-finals along with the 30 already prequalied for the semi-finals. Practice starts as early as the skaters can get there, usually around 9-10 a.m. The heats start at noon and don’t end until after 7 p.m. It’s a long day for everyone.

To break up the monotony, the Renee Renee bowl session takes place that afternoon. Money is given to the first person that lands the trick that Renee Renee calls out. He’ll just yell out stuff like ” $100 for the first backside Smith around the corner, eh” — and then it’s on. You have around 12 guys trying to take the money at once. That’s when you the near collisions. It was like watching a frenzy of sharks feeding, all trying to swoop in, tear off a leg, and then get out with the prize, eh. I’m not sure how much money was given away but it averaged about $100 every ten minutes for the hour I was there.

So afterwards, everyone heads back in to the downtown area for dinner which means I get to see more heroine addicted prostitutes and tweekers again! Yeah! Now, dinner after these events is always a big production. You always have at least ten people in your party, which means you probably won’t finish eating until 11p.m. And after which, you always get coerced into going to the after-parties. That seems to happen on a nightly basis through out the whole weekend. Tonight’s party included an open bar all night long, which meant danger. When you don’t have to spend any of your own money the drinks go down quicker and the pictures turn out better, eh!.

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Day One.

Thursday, May 1, 11:45 A.M — 3 A.M.

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Thursday is sign-in and practice day for all that are entered in the contest. Everyone usually flies into Vancouver on this day and they make their way to the Convention Center to see and skate the course. I figured that since this is probably the only day that I’d get to sleep in, I better take full advantage of it, eh?

[IMAGE 24]

The drive to the contest is a crazy experience of its own. Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities Iv’e been to, but there is a two mile stretch on West Hastings Street where at any given time you can see drug deals, prostitutes, heroine addicts shooting up, and tweekers of all sorts. I seriously do feel sympathy for these people, but it’s just so damn entertaining to see! Maybe its sad to say, but I look forward to driving it every year (and ill bet I’m not the only one).

As I make it to the arena, I see that the Hastings Park BBQ has already started and it’s not raining! Yeah! So, as I’m signing in to get the right credentials they casually ask me if I’ll be filming and taking photos, eh?, and I curiously respond with a “yeah?” It didn’t make sense for them to ask me that, and when a form containing all kinds of rules and regulations was set in front of me, I knew exactly what was meant. It was a sneaky, but an effective little move and I didn’t see it coming. You see, NBC threw down a ton of money to broadcast this event and they didn’t want any one else publishing any footage before them. I’m like “yeah- whatever, eh”, sign it, and leave to check out the street-course.

The designers did an amazing job this year! No crazy X-games style jumps, rails, etc…. It seemed like the course would bring out creativity in some people. I couldn’t wait to see the lines that everyone would come up with so I peeped at the list of entries and the names Chris Senn, Rick McCrank, Eric Koston, Chad Bartie, John Rattray, Caswell Berry, and Rodney Jones all stood out.

I then made my way outside to the barbecue for some food and bowl skating. The Hastings Park is conveniently located right next to the arena and it makes for the perfect get-away when you need a break from the contest atmosphere. My only advice would be that if you’re not a good bowl skater you probably shouldn’t skate when the sessions are going down!

[IMAGE 25]

[IMAGE 26]

I met up with local Powell am Jordan Hoffart earlier in the day. He practiced earlier all day and was still down to skate. We had planned to go skate a damn about an hour away but on the drive out there we stopped at the Port Moody Skatepark. It’s a small park, mellow, and way fun, eh! Everything there is built perfect and we skated longer than expected. Since we missed out on the damn skating, Jordan was nice enough to film a few tricks for a Port Moody Park Spotting. Check out the link.

Thursday is sign-in and practice day for all that are entered in the contest. Everyone usually flies into Vancouver on this day and they make their way to the Convention Center to see and skate the course. I figured that since this is probably the only day that I’d get to sleep in, I better take full advantage of it, eh?

[IMAGE 24]

The drive to the contest is a crazy experience of its own. Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities Iv’e been to, but there is a two mile stretch on West Hastings Street where at any given time you can see drug deals, prostitutes, heroine addicts shooting up, and tweekers of all sorts. I seriously do feel sympathy for these people, but it’s just so damn entertaining to see! Maybe its sad to say, but I look forward to driving it every year (and ill bet I’m not the only one).

As I make it to the arena, I see that the Hastings Park BBQ has already started and it’s not raining! Yeah! So, as I’m signing in to get the right credentials they casually ask me if I’ll be filming and taking photos, eh?, and I curiously respond with a “yeah?” It didn’t make sense for them to ask me that, and when a form containing all kinds of rules and regulations was set in front of me, I knew exactly what was meant. It was a sneaky, but an effective little move and I didn’t see it coming. You see, NBC threw down a ton of money to broadcast this event and they didn’t want any one else publishing any footage before them. I’m like “yeah- whatever, eh”, sign it, and leave to check out the street-course.

The designers did an amazing job this year! No crazy X-games style jumps, rails, etc…. It seemed like the course would bring out creativity in some people. I couldn’t wait to see the lines that everyone would come up with so I peeped at the list of entries and the names Chris Senn, Rick McCrank, Eric Koston, Chad Bartie, John Rattray, Caswell Berry, and Rodney Jones all stood out.

I then made my way outside to the barbecue for some food and bowl skating. The Hastings Park is conveniently located right next to the arena and it makes for the perfect get-away when you need a break from the contest atmosphere. My only advice would be that if you’re not a good bowl skater you probably shouldn’t skate when the sessions are going down!

[IMAGE 25]

[IMAGE 26]

I met up with local Powell am Jordan Hoffart earlier in the day. He practiced earlier all day and was still down to skate. We had planned to go skate a damn about an hour away but on the drive out there we stopped at the Port Moody Skatepark. It’s a small park, mellow, and way fun, eh! Everything there is built perfect and we skated longer than expected. Since we missed out on the damn skating, Jordan was nice enough to film a few tricks for a Port Moody Park Spotting. Check out the link.